Rainbow warriors

WHAT’S a high-school-dropout, Harley-riding, long-haul-trucking, fist-fighting, George W. Bush-supporting, pot-smoking, gay rural Midwestern real estate investor to do when he gets close to 40? For Tom Crosslin, the answer was simple: Buy a 34-acre semi-fallow farm in Michigan’s Cass County, move there with a lover 19 years his junior and call it Rainbow Farm.

Rainbow Farm was supposed to be a peaceful refuge where Crosslin, his friends and family could “all do some hunting and fishing, ride motorbikes, build big bonfires, smoke weed, make homebrew and spread out.” Crosslin’s buddies cleared the land, planted vegetables and built a few buildings. He organized summer hoedowns that grew into festivals called Hemp Aid and Roach Roast, featuring marijuana-legalization advocate Jack Herer and comedian Tommy Chong, with music by Merle Haggard and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Eventually, writes Dean Kuipers in “Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke,” thousands of “travelers and Rainbow Family crusties, union workers, libertarian fomenters and conspiracy theorists, blue-collar weekenders, academics and spontaneous dancers” paid the farm’s admission fees to camp out, smoke pot openly and dig the scene.

“Burning Rainbow Farm” is the story of how one individual created a safe haven in the middle of America, got politically active and ran afoul of the government. Kuipers, who has written for The Times and is deputy editor of Los Angeles CityBeat, became interested after reading about it in his hometown newspaper, the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette, in 2001.

In perhaps the most questionable move since the Hells Angels were hired at Altamont, Crosslin brought in the Michigan Militia to do security at his shows. Instead of guns, they were armed with video cameras to tape law enforcement hassles. An overzealous local prosecutor named Scott Teter was waiting in the wings. Since some local cops had been known to enjoy the festivities at Rainbow Farm during their off hours, he contacted state and federal enforcement agencies.

Crosslin’s second fatal error was the decision to grow pot in his basement. He had sold most of his real estate holdings to support Rainbow Farm and was running out of money. Whatever his intentions -- smoke it? sell it? -- when state troopers came in on a bogus tax-fraud warrant, they found more than 200 immature plants, which were all the prosecutor needed for the government to seize Rainbow Farm.

“Burning Rainbow Farm” is at its best when Kuipers writes about the people of Cass County. Having grown up there, he possesses a rare insight, and his portrait of the region’s rural conservatism -- a hybrid of libertarianism and a “mind-your-own-business” attitude -- is empathetic to everyone from the lady who runs the pizza place to Crosslin’s family and friends. Blue-collar stoners are a breed apart from college kids or urban hipsters but equally fierce in defending their right to privacy.

To highlight this, Kuipers weaves in a brief history of the hemp legalization movement and details Rainbow Farm’s leadership participation in signature-gathering drives to place a legalization bill on the Michigan state ballot. He also suggests a larger context by interviewing Stephen Gaskin, founder of the 36-year-old Tennessee collective community known as the Farm. Gaskin spoke at a Rainbow Farm festival and Crosslin sought a friendship with him. He responded with advice on crowd psychology, political action and how to organize the venue, insisting that Rainbow Farm remain committed to nonviolence and that Crosslin disavow the militia.

Kuipers provides solid statistics on marijuana laws -- since 1970, pot has been classified as a Schedule I drug, the same as heroin -- which involve mandatory sentencing and property forfeiture and underscore the “prison/industrial complex” and its political power.

At the same time, he articulates a more pragmatic view of marijuana: “For Joe Bag O’Donuts who didn’t quite catch the cosmic wave, weed was just a safer pain killer than nasty Vicodin or Oxycontin, and a healthier party alternative to alcohol and especially to hard drugs like heroin, coke, meth, or even nitrous oxide.”

Eventually, Rainbow Farm was the site of a Ruby Ridge-like standoff with authorities after Crosslin refused to appear at a court hearing that would have revoked his bond. He became a saint of circumstance by setting several buildings on fire before holing up in the farmhouse with his boyfriend, Rollie Rohm, when the siege began. After five days, he was shot in the head when he allegedly raised a weapon at federal agents. A day later, Rollie set fire to the property’s remaining building and was shot and killed after shouldering a gun of his own. Why haven’t we heard about this? It took place a week before Sept. 11.

Someone did this book a mighty disservice by giving it the subtitle “How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke.” Echoing the title of a Cheech & Chong movie, it subtly implies that the story is goofy and comedic. Comedic, maybe, but only by Greek tragedy standards. More to the point, “Burning Rainbow Farm” is a cautionary tale about the murky middle ground where citizens and government collide.